Patricia Mou

The linear approach imagines that the meaning of our lives can be reduced to a mission, like the kind that fixes saints, heroes and social reformers in the historical imagination.

There are Twitter threads made by anonymous writers which contain more insight than most published academic papers, and memes which capture the human condition better than most works found in art galleries.

“As we’ve seen, all criticism, attack, insults, and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message. The more we practice in this way, the more we realize a simple truth: behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to... See more

Acts of kindness, helping others, and going out of one’s way to be of assistance to those in need can, of course, increase the well-being of others. 

What I really want in life are experiences, activities, and states of being, not possessions.

“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy." - Elon Musk

I have taken a lot of happiness from a sense - often grandiose and sometimes illusory - that I am, by my various actions, helping create a future that will be more free, more tolerant, more open, and more just.

A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries. A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos... See more